Money can now move across wallets, markets and borders in seconds.
The next question is more interesting: what can investors do with it once it gets there?
DigiFT Founder and Group CEO Henry Zhang recently spoke with Hubbis about the next evolution of tokenised finance – and why bringing assets on-chain is only the beginning.
Money has become very good at moving. Putting it to work is another matter.
Stablecoins can travel around the clock, without waiting for bank counters or market hours. Yet investors seeking regulated exposure to funds, credit, gold or equities may still need to move back through local currencies, accounts and intermediaries.
The money has changed form. Much of the investment journey has not.
That gap sits at the heart of DigiFT’s thesis.
The Layer After Payments
Payments answer one question: how does value move?
The investment layer answers the next one: what can that value do?
DigiFT is building regulated infrastructure that connects on-chain liquidity with real-world investment opportunities across asset classes and markets. The aim is not to create a parallel financial universe. It is to make established investments accessible through the digital rails on which more capital is beginning to sit.
In other words: investors should not have to leave the on-chain economy simply to put their capital to work.
“What changes is accessibility and usability.”
Same Investment Better Route
Tokenisation does not magically improve an investment. A money-market fund remains a money-market fund. Equity remains equity. Gold remains gold. The underlying risk and return still matter – and so do governance, suitability, custody and investor protection.
What tokenisation can change is the route: how an investment is accessed, held, transferred, settled and, increasingly, used.
That distinction matters. The point is not to make familiar assets sound exotic. It is to make the infrastructure around them work harder.
Tokenisation Is Phase One
Henry describes the market’s development in three stages.
| STAGE | ROLE |
| 01 ACCESS | Bring regulated investment products on-chain and make them available to eligible investors. |
| 02 UTILITY | Enable tokenised assets to interact with other approved financial applications – including, where appropriate, their use as collateral. |
| 03 INTELLIGENCE | Build infrastructure for a world in which AI can move beyond portfolio analysis and carry out authorised financial actions. |
The progression is simple: first put assets on-chain, then make them useful, then make the surrounding financial experience smarter.
The Wealth Management Question
For private banks and wealth managers, tokenised finance is becoming more than a new product format.
If a growing share of client wealth sits in stablecoins or investor-controlled wallets, institutions will need credible, regulated ways to help that liquidity reach suitable investments.
Should clients have to convert back to fiat every time they want to invest? Or can investment infrastructure meet that wealth where it already is?
This does not remove the responsibilities of advice, suitability or control. It changes the operating route through which an approved allocation can happen.
The opportunity, then, is bigger than tokenisation itself. It is about rebuilding the connection between money and investment for an increasingly on-chain financial system.
Wider Deeper Smarter
DigiFT’s priorities for the next phase follow the same logic.
Wider means bringing more markets, managers and asset classes on-chain.
Deeper means expanding what tokenised assets can do after they have been acquired.
Smarter means preparing the infrastructure for agent-led finance – where analysis can eventually connect with authorised action.
As Henry puts it, an AI agent could become a “sleepless analyst”. But analysis is only part of wealth management. The real shift comes when intelligence and execution can meet on trusted rails.
From Banker to Builder
For Henry, this is not the first time finance has been reshaped by a new technology cycle.
He worked on early online banking and payment infrastructure before watching internet finance develop into an industry. When Web3 emerged, he faced a choice: continue observing the next shift from inside the established system, or help build it.
He chose to build.
The move from online to on-chain is not a rejection of financial fundamentals. It is an attempt to carry them forward – onto infrastructure designed for how value may move next.
And if the future of wealth management is more open, programmable and always on, its investment layer will need to keep pace.
Read Henry Zhang’s full conversation with Hubbis: From Online to On-Chain: How DigiFT Is Building the Investment Layer for Tokenised Wealth
